The Week Before Fall Break!

It's been a good, solid week here in the computer lab, with my big project being gettin' the 72 Keyboarding for Kids textbooks for 4th graders purchased up to par, editing the instructions and the parent letter to be sent home with each one, and labeling each one appropriately in an effort to reduce the number of replacement textbooks we'll have to buy for students in 4th grade next year. All done, the books went home yesterday. I gather that the typing practice homework will not start showing up until next week, but I'm cheered that quite a few 4th graders have made it a point to let me know they've logged in successfully from their home computers.

I'm very serious about what I say in the letter. Do not by any stretch of the imagination make this assignment a new point of conflict or stress in your homes. It's supposed to be good practice, first and foremost, and if a few lessons get missed I'm okay with that (though Ms. Marler may not be!) :).

I took a brief jaunt in to history with K and 1st graders this week, sharing how 'way back in 1999 the wonderful UpToTen.com website began by releasing a single online chapter of the book, "Around the World in 12 Songs with Boowa and Kwala," and I set them onto exploring the marvelous online offerings that have been built by this creative husband and wife team and their creative staff since then. There are hours of safe, kind, gentle learning experiences at the site--not a whit of sarcasm or meanness to be had; and I'm proud to have helped contribute to the fact that there are now (as of this writing) 7551 schools around the world using the resources to help children play and learn on the computer. Funny, when I logged in with the Kindergarteners this morning, there were 7550 schools. We're proud to have been school number 1 in their baby steps to success and service.

2nd and 3rd graders either began or continued their journey into touch-typing with Type to Learn 3, and as I've mentioned I'm resolved to stay with it, with them, for a good bit before moving onto other skills and other programs and online resources. It's that important.

Next week, I'll be away in New Orleans for the Internet2 fall meeting, where I've been invited to speak on a panel about Virtual Environments. There's complete info about that at the News site for the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach. Stellar sub Ellen Hicks will be here on Tuesday and Wednesday, then we're off to Fall Break! That said, you probably won't hear from me here next week. If you're missing the stream of consciousness feel free to google my name :)

Cheers, and thanks again for sharing your wonderful children with me!

Parent Teacher Conference Week, a short 'un

Greetings, all,

This week is a landmark one, and I'll finish landmarking it next week, since this one is a short one. We're out after half-day Thursday and then off Friday. Classroom teachers will be holding parent-teacher conferences during the "off" times and they are looking forward to seeing everyone to talk with you about your wonderful children.

What's the landmark? For the very first time I'm introducing 2nd graders to touch-typing, for real, with Type to Learn 3. This is a fun, challenging but not too-much-so, animated computer program designed to instill home-row-key typing skills in its users. We'll be spending considerable time this year in the computer lab working through its 25 lessons, or as far as we can go with it before other imperatives in the lab force us to move on and relegate its lessons to the realm of "free choice options." By the way, I also added several new links in the Webliographer's "Keyboarding" topic section, to online practice websites, and we'll explore those intentionally as the weeks go on, giving 2nd and 3rd graders resources that they can use anytime, anywhere, to practice their touch typing.

This decision is largely one based on the broad progress in our children's writing output brought about by last year's writing initiatives in the lower school. I believe that as children are writing more they should have the option of typing and if they are typing any significant amount they should begin learning correct (efficient) keyboarding skills so that they don't develop the incorrect (inefficient) ones that they may be forced to "unlearn" to improve upon. So right now, with 4th graders knee-deep into Keyboarding for Kids, and 2nd graders joining 3rd graders in Type to Learn 3, we are all about typing in the Lower School Technology for Learning lab.

All, that is, except the Kindergarten and 1st graders, who are all about K-1 Go Here, the little portal I long ago designed for those whippersnappers at our Webliographer. These young folks began to explore the other three "centers" at the portal this week, including Li'l Fingers Storybooks, PBSKids Between the Lions, and one of my very favorites, Boobah. We'll look more closely at those three kid-friendly sites over the next couple of weeks before jumping into computer-facilitated art, or "artputer."

That's all this week, excepting for a couple of pictures I'd like to share in a slideshow. Note the glee on the faces of the Kindergarteners who explored the completely wordless (all image and sound) Boobah, especially the one child who discovered that one of the characters he could play with on using his mouse was a ringer for his father, so he made all the characters on the screen into his dad! Also note the seriousness in the eyes of the 2nd graders. That's a good thing (though they're having fun, too, especially with the "Key Figures" in history that they are rewarded with during one of Type to Learn 3's activities.

Carrying on into the year

Monday of the third week in September, I didn't post last week since we were very busy pulling deeper into every arena of work, and it still continues this week in the same tracks. Read back last post for details.

The sole change of course is that I have my 2nd graders working in Dance Mat Typing, a bbc.co.uk site that does a fun job of introducing the concept of touch typing in home row key position. Little hands are challenged to begin and stay in that position every time they type, and this is really my first year of beginning the concept a bit more deeply than Type to Learn, Jr., which simply introduces the keys and requests that children use either the right hand or left to type simple combinations of keys.

We'll continue the work at all grade levels next week, the K-1 working through the 200 activities in UpToTen.com's Premium@Schools site for one more week before moving on to other things, the 4th graders getting completely comfortable with Keyboarding for Kids, and the 3rd graders working through Type to Learn 3.

I want to announce that I'm working two hours, one night each week, taking the required teacher training for Quest Atlantis, a very promising 3Dinternet virtual environment where students embark on teacher (and self-) guided "quests" rooted in a curriculum of Social Commitment. Much more on that later, as I determine how best to pilot the program with my 4th graders later on in the year. If you want to read ahead feel free to visit Quest Atlantis's website. Otherwise, stay tuned here. This is going to be good:).

The computer lab this year is much remodeled. I'll do a whole post about that soon. Meanwhile, here's a little slideshow of 2nd graders and a sneak peak at the "new" computer lab:

Labor Day Week! Labors of Love!

We are in the midst of our 3rd week of school, and a fun and productive one it is. 3rd graders begin their journey with Type to Learn 3 (link provided for informational purposes--please do NOT purchase the program), and we'll stick to it for several weeks while introducing the concept of Free Choice Options in the computer lab beginning next week. I'm very big on "Free Choice" within parameters: The kids already know that our responsibility here leads us to make all computer use choices within the Acceptable Use Policy, which allows for uses which are "in support of education and research and consistent with the educational objectives of the school."

4th graders continue on their own journey into Keyboarding for Kids (link provided for informational purposes--please do NOT purchase the program), the Ellsworth Publishing Company online platform for learning touch-typing. They are so enthusiastic about this that I hope to support that enthusiasm well into their self-motivated experiences with this very simple repetitive practice tool. I'm very proud of their work so far!

Kindergartners venture into the UpToTen.com Premium@Schools lessons to begin giving me the opportunity to guide them in their mouse use. It's interesting to me the ways different children approach the tool, and just when I think I've seen every way to hold a mouse, some new little one gives me a new one. Gently guiding them to grip that huge device (in their little hands) is what I do, and it usually results in more efficient and effective computer users. We'll have more opportunities to monitor and guide when we get into Drawing for Children and ArtRage, but for now, we're working linearly straight thru as many of the 200 activities (in 50 lessons) as I can help them negotiate in the next few weeks.

1st graders are doing the same, moving straight through the Premium@Schools lessons. I'm looking at how much more comfortable they are with the task(s) and feeling pretty good about our work together last year. Soon I'll introduce "Free Choice Options" to them, and I'll be watching to see their preferences and to examine why they make the choices that they make.

2nd graders are continuing with Type to Learn, Jr (link provided for informational purposes--please do NOT purchase the program). This simple program encourages students to begin learning where keys are on the keyboard, and further to begin poising both hands over the keyboard while they find them and type them, so that right-hand keys are struck with the right hand and left-hand with the left. They are excited to be playing the three games in the program, and I trust this gentle introduction to set some personal knowledge they'll call on soon. Most current research agrees that 2nd grade is too soon to actually teach touch-typing, for a number of reasons, but I like this little brush with its concepts at this time in the students' development paths.

By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, do check out the "All Grade Levels" page we set up for newsletters and such as we move toward a complete remake of USN's website this October. And I will, by the way, be out this weekend, down to Tampa, Florida for the Second Life Education Community Conference, where I'll be networking with others toward understanding and purposing 3-Dimensional internet tools for our children's future. More on that later, and you can keep up by watching the Second Life Education Blog at http://sl-educationblog.org, to which I'm a frequent contributing author. It's a different world, ya'll; one that I consider important as it develops popularity and adoption by schools and universities.

That's all for this week! Have a great one!